The unwatched TV

There is a distinctly different sound made by a TV being watched and one sitting alone in a room. It's one of my pet hates, a TV left on in a room where nobody is, talking away to itself, lonely. A psychoanalyst would probably put this down to my innate fear of loneliness and give me all sorts of exercises to overcome this fear but, luckily, this is my (self-indulgent) blog, so I have no need to be scared of psychoanalysis and its resultant exercises that I'd hate doing. Besides, I'm perfectly aware of my fear of lonileness, as has just been made obvious here. I don't mind being alone, in fact I like it sometimes. But loneliness - ugh, shudder.

I stray. Watched TVs, be their audience one or a crowd, seem to have a confidently calm kind of sound, like people talking to friends they know are listening. The minute the audience leaves the room, though, leaving the TV on its own in a room, the volume goes up slightly, as if the characters on screen have raised their voices and are peering expectantly around the side of the screen, waiting for someone to come back in and watch, allowing them to carry on with whatever scene was playing out.
Sunday morning ramblings on a Wintery long weekend, getting my writing juices flowing. Again. And I'm a little lazy about writing for a couple of weeks, then come back, and someone's moved all the furniture? This new format? It took me ten minutes (admittedly in a very lazy I'm-still-in-my-pyjamas-at-12 o'clock way) to find what to press to make a new post. Hell man, what's with the symbols for everything? Can't we just use lovely, old-fashioned, words? I can't imagine that anybody illiterate is wanting to write a new blog post, so why the need for little pictures?

Sunday meat market

I watched him nudge his friend and make lewd signals as she got up to go to the bathroom. She was dressed head-to-toe in white flowing things that made her look vaguely biblical. As she passed me I felt a desperate rush of air. He played on his phone while she was away and I could imagine the Twitter update or Facebook status he was writing, his face lit up blue by the screen. The smile he gave her on her return allowed me to know that he knew exactly what he was aiming for.

Leaning against the bar was a woman wearing an outfit that was far too small for someone her age, presumably to show off her numerous tattoos, some of which were beautiful. She’d obviously been there all afternoon and was just a little too loud as she flicked her bottle blonde hair while chatting up a body builder gone-to-seed at the bar, or being chatted up, I couldn’t quite tell and hadn’t been paying attention when it started to know who’d started with who. My money would’ve been on her if I had to bet. Again, I could see where their story would end.

My attention had been distracted by the beautiful young woman in the corner wearing jeans that fitted her so snugly I worried she might not be able to ever take them off. Her dark skin glowed in the candlelight from the table in front of her, the same candlelight that shone through her glass of white wine that was being kept full by the much older man next to her, his wedding band glinting. Beside us, a suave guy watched them, not secretly but unobtrusively. Her pimp.

It sounds like I was out at some dodgy bar. I wasn’t. It’s an upmarket place on the sea with a beautiful view over the ocean. Last night the waves were crashing over the rocks outside and sending spray twelve feet in the air, their spray looking in the window. I’m convinced the waves, like me, were fascinated with the goings-on in the meat market I found myself in on a gentle Sunday evening.

We left after the band started up and the ebony-skinned woman began dancing to the beat. Breathing in the sea air of the harbour, I wasn’t sure if it was the scenes I’d seen in the bar that were making me feel slightly queasy or the bobbing boats in the harbour giving me flashbacks to my childhood of sea sickness.

Sunday

Sunday. Coffee with varsity friend, of many, many years. Easy, cafe latte conversation while cute child distracts us. Then admin, bill-paying, shampoo-buying, rewarded with drink with in-love boy moving cities for love, even though he thinks he's not. Admirable I think.

Delicious sausages and German beer with Pop and Shuzie for lunch, comfortable.

Bumping into work friend, joining her for a glass of wine while her husband looks after the baby, her sweet, new, flannel pyjamas with lady bugs on in the trolley next to us.

G looks on quietly and we laugh in the car on the way home, a happy day

Lucky Shiny.

Sunday musing

After yesterdays' incredibly beautiful, clear, sunny day where everything we drove past or sat next to looked like a picture postcard, this morning is grey and rainy. It's gentle and quiet and as beautiful as yesterday, but in a more melancholic way. I feel like my emotions are bubbling through my pores, all of them - it's like my nerve-endings are all exposed. Must be the weather.

The gentle quietness, however, will last only until my lovely friends D and B and their lovelier daughter, M, (and M's new brother/sister, quietly growing to itself in D's tummy) arrive. Then the House in the Middle of the Street will change into an energy-filled playroom. My house is filled with stuff. Stuff like a large plastic dinosaur (previously mentioned in The Tragedy, Part 2). His name is Leonard, and he has been places, many places. He began as K (she who had Ava on Friday) and my pet at varsity, after various failed attempts at having real pets (another story for another day). There's a concrete mermaid outside, the bathroom is filled with plastic insects and lizards and a large plastic shark and pink plastic flamingo have set up home in there too. So, yes, M, all almost-3-years of her, likes it here, and the gentle silence will be disrupted by delighted squeals. Just how it should be on a Sunday.

Ooo, is that the doorbell?

Sunday in the sun

It was a lovely Sunday. The sun shone, we sat in it. The sky was so blue it hurt my eyes, we looked at it. The food was good, we ate it. The wine was delicious, we drank it. The waiter was lovely, we loved him. It couldn't have been better.